The Putin Interviews (Oliver Stone)

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I watched 1/4 of this on Youtube before it was taken down due to copyright, then I discovered that TVNZ has the interviews available in their "on-demand" section. Although there wasn't much new for me to learn, it was worth watching most of the interviews. Putin laughs frequently and makes many jokes, this seems to be why the American media hated it so much: "too friendly". Of course just because the US media hates it, that doesn't mean Oliver Stone did a bad job. The Putin Interviews is an excellent project that will be cited throughout the rest of this century! People today use World War II as the yardstick for everything, and Hitler is usually the yardstick for authoritarianism ... 65 years on. In the 22nd century I predict that more precedents will be set, be they military or political. Future wars will be judged based upon precedents set in World War II and newer precedents set in the early 21st century. For example, what is or isn't an act of war, and how much proxy war can be executed by a nation, without consequences.

The third hour of interviews was mainly about Ukraine and the fourth hour was about the hacking allegations. In the third hour, Putin shows his situation room where he talks to his staff via video link. Somewhere in the first or second hour he is asked about what the United States really intends for Russia, and Putin says something like: "I will answer this question in great detail and in a candid manner ... after I have retired".

It is a slow moving documentary/interview but there is an appeal to it, not because of Russia's role in the world, but because you can see Putin in a normal situation. Usually if Putin is on TV he is telling the US to stop lecturing Russia on democracy or he is accusing the US of interfering in Syria. In Oliver Stone's interview you see the normal Putin where he talks about the career choices of his daughters, saying he is proud because they are in science and education - not politics or corporate business! I'm not sure if the TVNZ link works for people outside New Zealand. I have never used TVNZ on-demand until now so I know very little about it.

My dad always says that Putin is dodgy and "like a villain from a Bond film"